1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computational techniques including digital signal processing for automated processing of speech and, in particular, to techniques whereby a system or device may be programmed to automatically transform an input audio encoding of speech into an output encoding of song, rap or other expressive genre having meter or rhythm for audible rendering.
2. Description of the Related Art
The installed base of mobile phones and other handheld computing devices grows in sheer number and computational power each day. Hyper-ubiquitous and deeply entrenched in the lifestyles of people around the world, they transcend nearly every cultural and economic barrier. Computationally, the mobile phones of today offer speed and storage capabilities comparable to desktop computers from less than ten years ago, rendering them surprisingly suitable for real-time sound synthesis and other digital signal processing based transformations of audiovisual signals.
Indeed, modern mobile phones and handheld computing devices, including iOS™ devices such as the iPhone™, iPod Touch™ and iPad™ digital devices available from Apple Inc. as well as competitive devices that run the Android operating system, all tend to support audio and video playback and processing quite capably. These capabilities (including processor, memory and I/O facilities suitable for real-time digital signal processing, hardware and software CODECs, audiovisual APIs, etc.) have contributed to vibrant application and developer ecosystems. Examples in the music application space include the popular I Am T-Pain and Glee Karaoke social music apps available from Smule, Inc., which provide real-time continuous pitch correction of captured vocals, and the LaDiDa reverse karaoke app from Khush, Inc. which automatically composes music to accompany user vocals.